By Brandon Hill on January 27, 2022 • ( Leave a comment )

2011: Colorado Vacation – Pike’s Peak

The day after my conference was over my son and I went to Pike’s Peak and road the Cog Railway to the top.

This first spread highlights the Pike’s Peak Cog railway ephemera. I chose a red background paper to match the color of the train. I cut the map of the route in half so that it could fit across both pages. There is a hiking pin in the top left-hand corner and a hiking patch in the top right-hand corner. The right-hand side holds our tickets, which include the date, time, and location, making it nice to remember when we had this adventure, without the need to journal. The brochure on the left-hand side is attached to the outside of the plastic page protector so that it can be opened for the viewer to read if they desire.

This second spread has pictures of from the Cog Railway ride. My memory of the day was that the sky was very blue when we were riding the train and so I chose blue background paper for the spread. On the left-hand page I used the left-over cutout from our rafting day page to put over the blue to represent the white billowing clouds that were also present. The right-hand page has stickers from the giftshop at the top of the mountain. Side note: I think I must have been tired when I was creating this page because it does not feel very creative to me. This would be a page that I might do over again – but it is against my philosophy of scrapbooking to redo pages. Leaving older pages as is, even with their flaws, shows my development in the craft over time.

This third spread shares photos from the top of the mountain – 14,110 feet. While I have hiked to the top in the past (Summer of 1997) I am glad that we took the train this time. The left-hand page has ephemera from the gift shop at the top – stickers, and part of the giftbag that shows the elevation – don’t visit the website – it isn’t live anymore :(.

The right-hand page has pictures from the top, and in the middle are two photographs that I cut and put together to show how the cogs look in the middle of the track. This system allows the train to climb steep parts of the route, but also serve as a braking mechanism for the trip back down to the bottom.